NAB 2012 – What To Expect

NAB Show 2012 is just a couple of weeks away and I am working on my personal ‘must see’ list. With the focus on the Content Lifecycle (creation, management, commerce, distribution and delivery, consumption), there is always a great deal to see at NAB.

The theme for this year’s event is The Great Content Shift. The explosive growth of the mobile market is causing and shift in demand for content ‘anytime, anywhere’ and users expecting a high quality experience no matter what device they are using. The resulting shifts in technologies and strategies have created new opportunities for both familiar providers and new players alike.

One area of focus that is definitely on my list is how cloud technologies and services are changing the way content professionals create, manage and deliver content. A Cloud Computing Conference day (Monday, April 16) and a new Cloud Computing Pavilion are part of this year’s program. One emerging technology is sure to be highly visible is cloud-based transcoding. Increasingly, content providers are transcoding for delivery to multiple screens and the ‘send once and let the cloud transcode and deliver all the various devices’ is very appealing. Using a cloud service also means that providers do not have to develop distribution solutions for the worst-case situations (i.e. unpredictable spikes in demand). Content owners now have two approaches to choose from – using enterprise-class software and hardware appliances, cloud-based solutions or a combination of both.